LING 4060/6060

LING 4060/6060 Old English

Fall Semester 2022 -- Jonathan Evans

Linguistics undergraduates and graduate students in historical linguistics will derive benefit from this course in the Old English language.  It is offered as an alternative to ENGL 4060/6060, in which less emphasis will be given to topics of strictly linguistic interest and more emphasis on literary and cultural topics. For the LING offering, literary and historical matters will receive less attention. Linguistics majors, students who have had a general linguistics course or courses in more highly-inflected languages, and even those who have had only the LING 2100 Intro to the Study of Language course, will have something of an advantage over those who have not. On the other hand, we'll be learning enough Old English to translate annals from the Peterborough Chronicle, a record of Anglo-Saxon history, along with passages of OE literary prose and -- later in the semester -- some poetry.  The bulk of class-time is spent reviewing essential points of grammar and vocabulary and translating -- first, sentences; later, paragraphs -- from Old English to Modern English. Most of the in-class activity is devoted to presentation and discussion of the functions of various categories of the Old English parts of speech, with students reading aloud their translations of sentences in the lessons and in-class discussion of translation difficulties encountered.

Prerequisites for this course include LING2100, LING2100E, LING2100H, or ENGL(LING) 3030; overrides for prerequisites may be negotiated between the instructor and the Linguistics Department.

Further details may be found in the University of Georgia Syllabus system linked HERE.